The Dark Side of Guilt: how scammers turn victims into criminals
Phone scammers have created schemes that are particularly dangerous for Russians. First, they look for victims and extort all the money from them (they force them to take out loans and get into debt), and then they accuse them of financing terrorism and force them to "cooperate with the special services - in fact, to become accomplices. Izvestia tells the stories of a Russian student and a designer who ended up in jail after communicating with scammers and can get real terms.
Turning victims into criminals
Fraudsters have begun to use particularly dangerous schemes - they not only lure Russians out of money, but also force them to be their assistants. As a result, the victims turn into criminals, and the organizers remain at large, lawyer Viktor Sergeev told Izvestia.
According to him, such schemes have been spreading throughout the country for the last six months. They work the same way: scammers contact the victim under a convincing pretext (for example, admission to university) and hack her account on "Public Services". Then the criminals call under the guise of special services and intimidate with criminal prosecution, accusing them of financing the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
–– People are caught on patriotism and fear of being involved in crimes. They are forced to "cooperate", but in fact - to carry out orders that lead to problems with the law, - said Sergeev.
Now the lawyer is defending two such clients, young people who have transferred from several hundred to millions of rubles to fraudsters. But instead of being recognized as victims, Daniil and Alexandra themselves ended up in the dock.
–– Their own statements to the police have not been accepted. And the young people are in jail, and they face up to several years in prison. They are in a terrible psychological state, almost in despair," the source told Izvestia.
Now the lawyer insists on conducting a forensic psychiatric examination for Daniil and Alexandra. He is sure that both victims of fraudsters did not realize what was happening and were under extreme pressure.
Alexandra's Story
Alexandra is 28 years old. Until recently, she lived in St. Petersburg and was a successful young designer, designing apartment interiors and doing repairs. Things were going well, and the girl decided to take out a loan for business development. To do this, Sasha turned to a credit broker, and he said that she had problems with her tax return.
–– When she got home, she began to understand the situation. She opened the bank's website, where she has current accounts, and at that moment the tax inspector allegedly called her, confirmed the problems and threatened her with fines - otherwise she would not be able to take out any business loan. He suggested that Alexandra make an appointment and join the electronic queue for speed, for which she had to give a four-digit code," says lawyer Viktor Sergeev.
Talking to the "inspector", Sasha did not read the contents of the text message and simply named the numbers. And then the scheme went according to the "classics": the "investigator" already called the girl, said that a loan of 5 million had been taken in her name and the money was directed to finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Alexandra was threatened with criminal prosecution, and when she denied her guilt, she was forced to collect all her savings (2 million rubles) and transfer them to a special account. And then, "in order to expose the people who opened her accounts and are still using them," to run errands.
–– She was forced to be in touch around the clock, install a special program on her phone - supposedly a Central Bank program that would protect her savings, but in fact, a spy who monitored everything the girl was doing. And then they forced her to run errands, which is why Alexandra ended up in jail," says the lawyer.
Alexandra's detention
Sasha's "agency" assignments were meetings with people from whom she took money and transferred it to a special account. Sasha was subsequently accused of aiding and abetting fraudsters, but she was not a classic courier. First of all, the lawyer explains, she wasn't paid for it. The "investigator" convinced the girl that this was how she was helping to expose the criminal chain in order to prove her innocence and then return her stolen money.
–– Drop gets rewarded for any deal. But Alexandra was refused even to compensate for the taxi. She borrowed money from friends and family and was completely sure that she was following orders, being in cooperation with special agencies," says Viktor Sergeev.
The scammers put more and more pressure on Alexandra: they knocked on her apartment, rang the intercom and threatened. The terrified girl agreed to leave and "work" in other cities - first in Moscow, then in Vladimir. It was there that the culmination of the story took place - Sasha was made an accomplice to a multimillion-dollar theft from a bank. She met with a woman who handed her 6 million taken out of a financial institution in Kovrov, and at that moment she was detained.
As Alexandra herself later said, she was captured by two plainclothes officers - she saw them at a meeting and was sure that she was working undercover. Sasha realized that she had been deceived only during the interrogations. The police also detained an employee of the same bank (he also took out money on a tip from scammers) and another deceived courier.
On August 16, Alexandra was taken into custody, and faces up to seven years in prison for complicity in fraud and embezzlement. At the same time, according to the lawyer, the investigation did not even take into account the correspondence of the girl with the criminals - 250 pages. Moreover, the investigator refused to conduct a psychological and psychiatric examination, which would have assessed her condition at the time of communication with the scammers.
Alexandra's friend Vera told Izvestia that before her detention, the girl had "closed herself off" from her family and was very worried. In recent days, she wrote that it was very difficult for her emotionally, but she could not say anything, referring to work.
–– Now we understand that she signed a non-disclosure statement (fake), which was sent to her by scammers, and therefore kept everything to herself, - Vera shared. –– There are screenshots of her correspondence in the case file. And it clearly shows that she had to report every hour. Send screenshots of all correspondence, calls, and send videos of what is happening nearby. She sincerely believed that she was working with a Central Bank employee and an investigator who were solving her problem with hacking into "Public Services" and helping to close the accumulated loans in her name.
Her relatives are fighting for her to be transferred from the status of the accused to the victim - because of fraudsters, her debt (loan, money taken from her mother and friends) amounts to more than 2.5 million rubles. But, according to the lawyer, the police did not deal with Alexandra's own statement that she had been deceived and lured out of money.
The Story of Daniel
Daniil is a 22-year-old student from Moscow. In mid-July, he received a call from the rector's office of his university and was told that he needed to take a test on the eve of the new academic year. "Are you ready right now?" the employee asked. "Yes, of course," Daniel replied and clicked on the link. The site is visually similar to the portal of his university, the young man clicks on the "personal account" button. "I see you've entered, the confirmation code is coming now, dictate it," the voice commanded.
Engrossed in the conversation, Daniel reported the numbers and hung up. Five minutes later, Rosfinmonitoring allegedly called him and informed him that a transfer had been recorded from his account to the address of a person on the blacklist. And Daniel will be held accountable for financing an extremist organization.
"... an investigator called him on Telegram, introduced himself as Major Tskhabritsky and said that it was necessary to carry out a procedure to replace his personal account so that there would be no further transfers to unwanted accounts, told him to turn on the camera and showed himself, on the screen he saw a man of Slavic appearance. He was scared, he tried to log into the Gosuslugi application under his account, but could not log in, this convinced him of the reality of what was happening and in reality that employees of Rosfinmonitoring, the FSB and the tax inspectorate were talking to him," the indictment says.
–– Then everything starts the same as with Alexandra: "if it wasn't you, you need to be in touch around the clock, transfer your savings for an examination." Daniil was persuaded to give all his money by transferring 200 thousand rubles and take out a loan for a million. But it's not enough for criminals: they also start using him as a courier, without a single penny of funding, without paying for a taxi," says Viktor Sergeev.
As follows from the materials of the indictment, "... Firsov's supervisor ordered him by phone to issue a crypto wallet and exchange money in an exchanger, Daniel said that he did not want to do this, asked him to give it to a freelance employee, secretly hoping that his documents would be given to him. Then the "investigator" called him and ordered him to do what he was told, otherwise he would be prosecuted, he ordered him to exchange for cryptocurrency. He didn't want to do it because he was tired and already wanted to go home. Firsov then called him again and told him to go to the bank in Moscow City and exchange the dollars into rubles, so that they would then be credited to an unknown account of the person to whom they belong. He asked someone else to do it, and explained that it was all strange."
Daniil was "led" by phone for two days, without giving him time to come to his senses and consult with his loved ones. During this time, he managed to meet with two people, including an underage girl, and take away their family jewels. After that, the student is detained and also taken into custody on charges of fraud.
"On June 26, Daniil was taken to the OMVD of Russia in the Biryulyovo-Vostochnoye district of Moscow for further investigation. Now he understands that he became a tool of fraudsters who stole his money, but at the time of the events he believed that he was helping government agencies and he had no intention of committing theft. He does not admit guilt," follows from the materials of the indictment.
The story of the injured Anna
The girl, who was deceived by scammers and forced to give money to Daniel, became a victim of almost the same scheme as the young man himself. The only difference is that she wasn't made a criminal because of her age. Anya (name changed) is 17 years old, and she still cannot take out loans or open crypto accounts.
Anya was enrolled in Gnesinka this year. The girl received a call allegedly from the rector's office: They said that since she had submitted the documents, she needed to be tested and register on the school's website. They sent the same link, then asked me to open the demo screen. At that moment, Anya received an SMS with the password from the Gosuslug website. The scammers immediately hacked her account.
- After that, the daughter received a call allegedly from the tax service and said that unknown persons had gained access to all her documents through Gosuslugi and were trying to transfer money to a wanted person in Ukraine. They knew everything about our family: they knew that we ourselves had Ukrainian roots, that our grandparents lived there, and they put pressure on it. The daughter was intimidated by criminal prosecution, they called several times: from the FSB, Rosmfinmonitoring, they scared her," the girl's mother Victoria D. told Izvestia.
"The employee started asking if I had any money at home. I said that the only valuable items are gold and silver. Next, the man asked me to walk around the apartment and film the situation on camera, which I did. After that, he said that in order not to arrange a search at our place, I need to collect all the jewelry, weigh them in order to prove that they belong to us and we will not send them to Ukraine," Anya said during testimony in the criminal case.
The girl was persuaded to hand over a package of gold and silver to a courier, ostensibly for examination. Anya returned home and an hour later realized that all correspondence with the "special services" in Telegram had been erased. When her mother returned from work, Anya confessed everything to her, and they contacted the police.
–– I can't blame the courier specifically - I understand that he was unlucky, and my daughter could have been in the same situation if the criminals had gone further. After all, they talked to her for seven hours, did not let me contact her, and intimidated her. Scammers are good psychologists, they choose people who can be scared, deceived. But I also understand that everyone should be responsible for their actions, so young people need to be taught, explained how the laws work, how fraudsters act," Victoria said.
The woman added that in the incident, she still had questions about the educational institution - how her daughter's personal data and phone number got to the scammers and to the pawnshop, which accepted a large amount of jewelry from a stranger without question.
How scammers find their victims
Alexander Vurasko, Director of development at the Solar AURA External Digital Threat Monitoring Center, Solar Group, tells Izvestia that fraudsters have many options for where to get Russians' data from. These are leaks that have already affected almost every citizen, phishing resources, and the collection of information based on the analysis of open sources. In fact, even through a banal search engine, you can often collect a lot of data about a particular person - we all leave digital footprints.
–– Consider Alexandra's story. Everything is simple here. Instead of contacting the bank, the girl turned to an obviously fake loan broker. Then everything developed according to the classic scheme of telephone scams with the theft of user account access. She provided all the necessary information on a phishing website, as well as during communication with a fake tax inspector and investigator," explains Vurasko. –– As for Daniel's story, we can say that the lists of students or applicants are often publicly available. And then a phishing site, data access theft, and the usual scenario.
According to the expert, attackers almost never know sensitive or personal data in advance. They extract all such information from the victim in the process of communication using social engineering. Full name, date of birth, address, place of work and study - all this can be found in various leaks, but in general it is not the information that in itself can harm a potential victim. But the balance of the bank account, information about the property of the attackers, as a rule, learn from the victim himself. The main thing is to establish initial contact.
–– Each of the schemes finds its audience. The schemes are extremely diverse and aim to reach the widest possible audience. It's hard to believe, but the scheme to raise funds for the return of an astronaut stuck in orbit also works. Is it plausible? For some, yes. There will be more trusting people in every audience who will eventually become victims," the Izvestia source says.
Izvestia managed to talk to two forensic psychiatric experts who work with victims of fraudsters. Both noted that a lot of such examinations have been conducted recently, but according to the criteria of psychiatry, people are "mostly healthy," although in some cases they have diagnoses. Psychologists explain the victims' behavior by extreme stress, shock, and temporary confusion caused by psychological and neurobiological effects.
- Most victims do not even realize that they are being deceived, - this is the key paradox of such situations. Under the influence of fear, a person's prefrontal cortex is blocked, he acts instinctively. And critical thinking is physiologically inaccessible at this moment," concludes clinical psychologist Margarita Rudenko.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
